It was a busy first week of the new year for the nation’s top-two retailers, as both Walmart and Amazon had their feet planted firmly in the present dealing with the latest COVID challenges, while also keeping their eyes on the future with a swirl of long-term tech investments that, in some cases, were out of this world.
When you think of how the U.S. Forest Service crews have to fight multiple brush fires at once, one of the big challenges is to contain the here-and-now while also planning ahead to prevent further problems in the future.
It’s a prioritization process and resource balancing act that in some ways resembles what Amazon and Walmart went through in the first week of the new year, as both were forced to manage through the day-to-day demands of the present while also making moves that should make life — or at least business — easier in the future.
COVID, COVID and More COVID
On the front burner, as has been the case so often over the past two years, was the impact from the latest explosion of COVID and the array of unique challenges and changes that come with each successive strain.
In this case, the highly contagious omicron variant has sparked at least a three-pronged set of new problems for both companies in the form of staffing and store challenges, as well as a huge surge in public demand for at-home test kits, medicines and other related remedies to deal with the spike in cases.
First came word from Walmart that last month it needed to shut down and deep clean 60 stores to make them safe for customers and employees. Two things to note, while that amounts to only about 1.2% of its 5,000 U.S. locations (or said another way, 99% of its stores were not affected) the daily contagion rates have only worsened in the waning days of December into the early days of January.
Therefore, it would not be surprising to see more instances of temporary store closures in the days and weeks to come, as well as other busy facilities such as fulfillment centers and clinics, which have been working double-time to try to put COVID home test kits in consumers’ hands, as well as all the other ancillary supplies that are facing a demand spike, including masks, wipes and cleaners.
In what could be seen as an indicator of both present and future activity, as well as a byproduct of the healthcare-related expansion both companies have undertaken, reports surfaced that at least 15 Walmart and Sam’s Club pharmacies are already dispensing the newly approved antiviral medications, which are also experiencing more demand than supply.
Fridges, Vans and the Final Foot
On the more forward-looking front beyond the current grip of COVID, this week also saw the retail rivals making a handful of moves that could best be described as efforts to not only improve the final mile of delivery, but rather, to remake the final foot.
In a splashy announcement Wednesday (Jan. 5), Walmart said it was expanding its InHome food delivery service to 30 million households (from 6 million currently), thereby taking the frontier of the food fight right into the fridge. In order to facilitate this effort, which for about $20 a month will have a special Walmart worker let themselves into your home and put away your groceries, the Bentonville-behemoth said it was looking to take on 3,000 new employees and roll out a fleet of electric delivery vans.
Both Walmart and FedEx signed on to buy thousands of GM’s new next-gen BrightDrop delivery vans this week, with the former reportedly reserving 5,000 of the electric rigs for its zero emissions fleet.
This presented a dual challenge to Amazon, which has already tried and bailed on the in-fridge idea but promptly answered with some futuristic fleet news of its own. At the nation’s annual CES technology convention in Las Vegas, Amazon and Stellantis announced a new partnership that will not only put its tech into a new line of connected vehicles, but will also jointly develop a new fleet of electric Ram ProMaster delivery vans which are set to hit the road some time next year.
To the Moon!
And lastly, for those old enough to remember Jackie Gleason’s signature “To the Moon!” line from the Honeymooners sitcom, Amazon’s latest other-worldly foray appears to be moving along a similar path.
As much as Walmart and some consumers might see launching Alexa into space as an answer to their prayers, for Amazon, it marks the next frontier to spread the usage of its voice technology platform to places it’s never been before.
“We’re proud to be working with Lockheed Martin (and NASA) to push the limits of voice technology and AI,” said Amazon’s perfectly titled Aaron Rubenson, the vice president of Alexa Everywhere, in the blog post. “We hope Alexa’s role in the mission helps inspire future scientists, astronauts, and engineers who will define this next era of space exploration.”
At last check, no one lived on the moon so the use case for outer space Alexa seems a little sketchy at the moment, but that isn’t stopping Amazon because, as Ralph on the Honeymooners used to say, “one of these days, Alice. One of these days.”
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